The Fabric of Friendship
Elizabeth Keckley and Mary Todd Lincoln
(The focus at the beginning of the show is offstage until otherwise indicated in the script. )
MARY: She was by the far the most accomplished seamstress in Washington D.C.
ELIZABETH: She was by far the most . . . and here I must choose my words carefully . . . unique client I’d ever encountered.
MARY: Elizabeth Keckley, born a slave in Virginia, bought her freedom at the age of 37, and set up her dressmaking business in Washington just after my husband had been elected President of these United States.
ELIZABETH: Mary Todd Lincoln. Well, what is there to say about her that you don’t already know?. . . except . . . because of our relationship let’s say that I knew a few things that others didn’t.
MARY: Intelligent, literate, stubborn.
ELIZABETH: Smart, articulate, hardheaded. Our great savior, the President, was dead. You know about that. Mrs. Lincoln was confined to her bed for five weeks and it was over a month before she left the White House.
MARY: I gave away everything intimately connected to the President. I could not bear to be reminded of the past.
ELIZABETH: The bloodstained cloak of the President was given to me, along with the bonnet she wore that night.
MARY: I could not bear to be reminded of the past.
ELIZABETH: . . . and one more special gift. . .When Mr. Lincoln was ready to go down for a reception he’d hand me his comb and say, “Well, Madam Elizabeth. . .” He always called me that. “Will you brush my bristles down tonight?” Then he’d take a seat in his easy chair while I would arrange his hair. I have his comb and brush.
MARY: There! Put them there! No! No! No!
ELIZABETH: Moving out of the White House was an ordeal.
MARY: It’s only a few boxes, for God’s sake!
ELIZABETH: Fifty . . . maybe sixty boxes, for God’s sake.
MARY: It’s only a few boxes! Hurry!
ELIZABETH: Mrs. Lincoln had a passion for hoarding. . . . and so we packed up and headed for Chicago. I had no desire to travel to the West. Mrs. Lincoln, I cannot go west with you.
MARY: But you must go to Chicago with me, Lizabeth. I cannot be without you.
ELIZABETH: You forget my business. Just now I have the spring trousseau to make for Mrs. Douglas.
MARY: Now don’t say another word about it if you do not wish to distress me! I have determined that you shall go to Chicago with me, and you must go! Mrs. Douglas can find another seamstress.
ELIZABETH: (a long beat, then) I went. With reluctance. I was successful. . . in my own way. The finest ladies in Washington called upon me to make their dresses and now I was giving it all up for . . . .
MARY: Lizabeth!
ELIZABETH: Coming. I was giving it all up for . . . what? I’m still not sure. We had a friendship, yes. Mrs. Lincoln’s promised salary from the government had turned into a false hope.
MARY: Lizabeth!
ELIZABETH: More than all else, I suppose, she needed a friend.
MARY: Lizabeth, stop dawdling so! You are distressing me!
ELIZABETH: And perhaps I mentioned. . . she was stubborn.
MARY: Lizabeth, if you please!
ELIZABETH: I can never forget that day. . . just months earlier the President’s body had been taken down those halls as thousands bowed their heads in reverence, the band playing, the drooping flags. Now the wife of the President was leaving the White House and there was scarcely a friend to tell her goodbye. The silence was almost painful. We walked down that last long hallway together.
MARY: Chicago. At last. Lizabeth, you are my kindest friend, and I love you as my best friend. I wish it were in my power to make your comfortable for the balance of your days. If Congress provides for me, depend on it, I will provide for you.
ELIZABETH: If Congress provides. (a small laugh) The Congress wanted to simply wash their hands of Mrs. Lincoln and have her quiet. We settled in a resort called Hyde Park.
MARY: What a dreary place, Lizzie! And to think I should be compelled to live here because I have not the means to live elsewhere!
ELIZABETH: I had listened to her sobbing for eight weeks and was not surprised to find her in tears. Young Tad was the only cheerful one. . . a child of sunshine. I looked out upon the lake and wondered what could possibly be dreary about a place like this and after some time. . . . Mrs. Lincoln, I must return to Washington.
MARY: Lizzie! No!
ELIZABETH: My work, Mrs. Lincoln.
MARY: Lizzie!
ELIZABETH: I’m sorry. Goodbye. I came back to Washington, opened my shop and the orders began pouring in. The months passed, the business prospered, then. .
MARY: Lizabeth I insist that you join me in Chicago. I have yet to visit my husband’s grave in Springfield . . . it’s been two years now.
ELIZABETH: Ma’am, I cannot afford the journey.
MARY: Once Congress grants me my appropriation you shall be recompensed, I assure you.
ELIZABETH: The Congress did no such thing and I stayed in the East. Mrs. Lincoln left Chicago with Tad, found a Springfield hotel, visited his grave the next morning then was back on the train.
MARY: I cannot bear to encounter any of our old friends.
ELIZABETH: I was asked many questions about Mrs. Lincoln during all this. The world thought me to be her spokesman, I assume. I gave only brief answers and they were all most unsatisfactory. Then some time later. . . March of 1867, I got the letter that started it all.
MARY: “I have not the means to meet the expenses of even a first class boarding house and must move out and secure cheap rooms somewhere in the country. It will not be startling news to you, Lizzie, to learn I must sell a portion of my wardrobe. .. “
ELIZABETH: She’d been allotted only $1700 a year.
MARY: “I might was well turn them into money. It is humiliating to be placed in such a position but I must extricate myself as best I can.”
ELIZABETH: Everything made sense . . . until this. . .
MARY: “I want you to meet me in New York to assist me in disposing of a portion of my wardrobe.”
ELIZABETH: But Mrs. Lincoln. . .
MARY: I insist!
ELIZABETH: I looked at the facts. . . she had many valuable dresses, she’d never wear them again, New York was the best place to transact such dealings and she was the wife of Abraham Lincoln, the savior of my race. September 18th I stepped down off the train in New York City and no idea where I was going.
MARY: I will be at the St. Denis Hotel under the name of Mrs. Clarke.
ELIZABETH: Lost. I hopped aboard a stage headed for downtown. A kind gentleman directed me to the St. Denis and I found myself standing on the sidewalk, pulling the bell on the ladies’ entrance. And in a moment. . .
(the two direct their focus to each other for the first time)
MARY: Lizzie! My darling Lizzie!
ELIZABETH: Mrs. . . .. . .Clarke.
MARY: Come! Come dear friend! We’ll see to your room. (to an unseen clerk) This is the woman I told you about . . . . you what? But she must have a room! And one adjoining mine! Now get about your business and get it done! . . . . There must be a room! I demand it! Fifth floor? Then I shall move there as well! Send a boy for our luggage immediately! Such impudence.
ELIZABETH: Remember…he thinks he’s talking to Mrs. Clarke.
MARY: Lizabeth I was scared to death without you. My God! It was terrifying! Oh my dear friend, when did you last eat?
ELIZABETH: Not a bite since this morning.
MARY: Then off to supper! Go! Go! Eat and we’ll make our plans! (Mary turns her back, out of the scene)
ELIZABETH: I was seated in the dining room when. . . I am what? I am not in the wrong room. I was brought here by the waiter. No, I am not Mrs. Clarke’s servant, I am with her. The servant’s hall? But why? The servant’s hall was locked. No, I did not come in off the street! I have a room here! He had put the ex-President’s wife in a small, three-cornered room, so I should not have expected civil treatment.
MARY: He did what?
ELIZABETH: I’ll just go to bed.
MARY: You shall not! Grab your bonnet! We’re going out to find you some food! Insolent, overbearing people!
ELIZABETH: You are not Mrs. Lincoln, tonight. You are Mrs. Clarke. They already suspect something is wrong. I’ll wait until morning. Good night, ma’am.
MARY: But Lizzy!
ELIZABETH: Goodnight.
MARY: (writing) Mr. Brady, Commission Broker, No. 609 Broadway, New York. I have this day sent you personal property, which I am compelled to part with, and which you will find of considerable value. The articles consist of four camels’ hair shawls, one lace dress and shawl, a parasol cover, a diamond ring, two dress patterns and some furs. My great, great sorrow has made me painfully sensitive. I am passing through a very painful ordeal, which the country in remembrance of my noble and devoted husband should have spared me. Mrs. Lincoln.
ELIZABETH: (coming into the scene) You used your name.
MARY: I did. And I reduced the price to $16,000. Lizzie I must have the means to live in at least a medium comfortable state.
ELIZABETH: And their response?
MARY: They have promised to show my letters to certain prominent politicians, Lizzie. Mr. Brady has threatened them with the publication of my letters if funds are not raised.
ELIZABETH: Mrs. Lincoln, if you could soften the tone a bit. I’ve been watching you write your letters. . . they seem. . .
MARY: Harsh? Vindictive? Pleading! Yes! Yes, Lizabeth! All that and more! And we are changing hotels. Mr. Brady demands it. Tomorrow we shall be at the Union Place Hotel.
ELIZABETH: This Mr. Brady . . . can he be. . . .?
MARY: Trusted! Of course! He asked me to put my affairs in his hands and he’ll raise at least $100,000 in a few weeks. Come! Let’s get our things together! (Mary turns upstage)
ELIZABETH: I began hunting up dealers in second hand clothing and had them call on us at the hotel. They were hard bargainers so Mrs. Lincoln and I loaded up a carriage load of shawls and such and drove to a number of stores on Seventh Avenue. . . store after store. . . She met them squarely but all of her tact and shrewdness failed to accomplish much. We returned, disgusted.
MARY: (entering the scene) My God, Lizzie, I cannot understand! I simply cannot understand!
ELIZABETH: And we have another problem. Ma’am. A reporter saw your name on one of the trunks in the lobby.
MARY: I had my named erased!
ELIZABETH: Not well enough, Ma’am. One of them traced the faint outline of “M. Lincoln.”
MARY: No matter! No matter at all, Lizzie! Mr. Brady says that the Republican Party will not permit it to be said that the wife of Abraham Lincoln was in want. He says that the leaders will pay large sums of money to prevent the publication of my letters telling of the desperation in selling my wardrobe.
ELIZABETH: I don’t mean to pry, Mrs. Lincoln, but how are we to live until all this happens?
MARY: I borrowed $600 from Mr. Brady and his partner, Mr. Keyes.
ELIZABETH: But Mrs. Lincoln. . .
MARY: And we’re leaving this hotel immediately. We must throw the reporters off our trail. Now begin packing. (Elizabeth turns upstage.) (writing) “Mr. Brady. I cannot express strongly enough my disappointment that your scheme was a failure. I cannot insist upon you strongly enough that this great nation once so overflowing with love and devotion for the Lincolns has now so heartlessly turned its back. I await your reply as to further negotiations.”
ELIZABETH: (entering the scene) It’s late. You’re still up, Mrs. Lincoln?
MARY: Sleep escapes me, Lizzie, and when it finds me it is no friend. I see my dear hero lying there and watch the thousands of mourners pass his bier then I think of my desperate circumstance.
ELIZABETH: Sit, Ma’am. You can at least rest that much.
MARY: But how can I rest when. . . .
ELIZABETH: Sit. Let us . . . let us talk of things more welcome.
MARY: (sitting, as does Elizabeth) Lizzy, life has given me no dearer friend that you. You know that.
ELIZABETH: I know that, Ma’am.
MARY: Forgive me. My thoughts have been so much taken with my own dire situation that I . . . well, you have suffered, too.
ELIZABETH: No more than I can bear.
MARY: And I am so proud of what you have become.
ELIZABETH: Thank you, Ma’am. I was born a slave of slave parents but I came into this world with a free mind.
MARY: A wonderful mind.
ELIZABETH: Thank you, Ma’am.
MARY: What. . . tell me…what do you remember?
ELIZABETH: Of what?
MARY: Your life.
ELIZABETH: Everything, I suppose.
MARY: Stories. You must have stories. Tell me one.
ELIZABETH: Well. . . how far back should I travel?
MARY: As far as you can remember. Tell me, Lizzie.
ELIZABETH: Alright. Four years old. I had a little white dress and apron, and my master’s wife gave birth to a beautiful black-eyed baby. It was my duty to take care of her . . . Elizabeth was her name as well. And if I did it well then I could move from the rude cabin to the household of my master. My old mistress told me to rock the cradle, keep the flies out the baby’s face and not let her cry. So I began to rock the cradle most industriously. . . too industriously…and the baby toppled out into the floor. I stood up and shouted, “Oh! The baby is on the floor!” then seized the fire shovel and tried to shovel up the child.
MARY: (laughing) Oh my God, Lizzy!
ELIZABETH: She had me taken out and beaten. . . .
MARY: No!
ELIZABETH: Four years old . . . and that black-eyed baby grew up cause me much trouble and heartache.
MARY: Surely your father. . .
ELIZABETH: My father belonged to another master. We saw little of him.
MARY: I’m so sorry, Lizzy.
ELIZABETH: He wrote a letter. .. “Tell my darling little Lizzie to be a good girl and to learn her book. Kiss her for me I tell her I will come to see her some day.” He lived in hope but died without ever seeing us again.
MARY: Lizzy. . .
ELIZABETH: And then there was Little Joe.
MARY: Little Joe?
ELIZABETH: I was seven. I’d never seen a human being sold before. The master had bought a load of hogs and was short of cash so he had to sell one of his slaves. . . he chose Little Joe, the son of the cook. His mother was ordered to dress him up in his Sunday clothes and they put him on a scale. .. .
MARY: They. . . .
ELIZABETH: They . . . (a moment, she takes a breath) . . They sold him by the pound, Mrs. Lincoln. They sold the boy by the pound. When his mother would not stop grieving the master had her whipped. He preferred his slaves to be happy.
MARY: Lizzy, my heart breaks. That is. . . that is. . .
ELIZABETH: That is slavery, Mrs. Lincoln.
MARY: But your own family. . . .?
ELIZABETH: My uncle, another of Colonel Burwell’s slaves, lost a pair of harness. The Colonel replaced them and told him he’d have my uncle beaten if it happened again.
MARY: And. . .
ELIZABETH: And the second pair were stolen. My mother went out to fetch water the next morning. She said she looked up into the willow tree . . . (she pauses) . .
MARY: Lizzy?
ELIZABETH: She saw her brother hanging there. He took his life. He knew how the Colonel punished his servants.
MARY: (a long beat as Elizabeth stares at the ground and Mary is without words, then finally. . . ) I fear I have added to our sadness by making you relate your horrors, Lizzy.
ELIZABETH: You forget that the past is dear to everyone. . .for to the past belongs that golden period. . . the days of childhood. The past reflects my life and to surrender it. . . well, that is to surrender the greatest part of my existence.
MARY: I don’t understand.
ELIZABETH: I hold my past dear, Mrs. Lincoln. It is who I am.
MARY: But the horrors. . .
ELIZABETH: You . . . rather “those” . . . in the North do not understand, Mrs. Lincoln. You do not know the Southern people as I do. . . You do not understand that there can also be warm attachments between master and slave.
MARY: That. . . I . . . well, I cannot comprehend that at all.
ELIZABETH: As I said. . . you cannot understand. My childhood, my golden moments, are still my moments. They belong to me and no one else and I cannot for a minute bear to let go of a single one of them.
MARY: Did you escape from the Colonel?
ELIZABETH: He loaned me to a Presbyterian minister when I was fourteen.
MARY: At last!
ELIZABETH: I did the work of three servants. . . his wife scolded me night and day. . . and then she met Mr. Bingham.
MARY: Mr. Bingham?
ELIZABETH: The schoolmaster. She persuaded him to cure me of my pride. He asked me to come into his study and when he closed the door he said, “Lizzie, I am going to flog you.” I said, “Whip me, Mr. Bingham! What for?” He said, “No matter. Now take your dress down.” I was eighteen and a woman fully developed but he bade me take down my dress. I said, “No sir, Mr. Bingham! I shall not take down my dress and you shall not whip me unless you prove yourself stronger! Nobody has a right to whip me but my master!” He seized a rope and tied me, he tore the dress from my back and picked up a rawhide.. .
MARY: Lizzie! No!
ELIZABETH: I ran to the minster and said, “Why did you let him beat me?” He said, “Do not bother me!” Then he struck me with a chair. Then Mr. Bingham tried to whip me again some days later and I told him I was prepared to die so he seized a heavy stick and I was defeated again. When Bingham would no longer beat me the minister’s wife urged her husband to do so. He went to the woodpile, sawed off the handle of a broom and had at me.
MARY: Lizzie, I cannot bear another word. . . . please. . . . not another word.
ELIZABETH: You asked me for my stories. There’s one more. You have said yourself, we are friends. . .
MARY: Of course.
ELIZABETH: I was considered fair looking for one of my race.
MARY: I’m sure you were.
ELIZABETH: And while I was with the reverend a white man began to follow me for four years. . . and . . . . then. . . .
MARY: Lizzy. . .
ELIZABETH: He had his way. I became a mother. If my poor boy suffered any pangs on account of his birth it was not because of his mother. I did not want to give him life.
MARY: What a horrible, wretched world.
ELIZABETH: The community did not look favorably on such behavior, Mrs. Lincoln. There were many good people.
MARY: I . . . I am glad you shared this with me, Lizabeth. My God….my dear God what a story. But your sewing. . .
ELIZABETH: My mother. My sainted mother. I watched her every move. I moved to St. Louis to live with one of my master’s daughters. They were so poor that they offered my mother for sale and I could not bear it. I told him I would beg for work from street to street to save the life of my mother… so for over two years I supported my family and my master’s . . . seventeen people with my sewing. . . for all the finest ladies of St. Louis. I provided the only income for everyone.
MARY: And that’s where you found your freedom?
ELIZABETH: I tried to buy myself. . . and my son. $1200 was the asking price for our freedom and I determined I would do it. Some kind folks told me to go to New York and beg the abolitionists for the money then Mrs. Le Bourgois stopped at my door one morning. . . she said that she and her St. Louis friends would raise the money. Mrs. Lincoln, the cloud lifted. Free. . what a glorious sound to that word! The bitter heart-struggle was over.
MARY: But you once told me. . . your master . . .
ELIZABETH: Yes. . . my new master offered to pay my ferry trip across the Mississippi and give me my freedom, but I insisted that he follow the law of the land and demand payment.
MARY: You are. . . you are surely the most remarkable woman I have ever encountered. I wonder how many seamstresses have worked for both Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.
ELIZABETH: I think I may be the sole proprietor of that title. I dearly loved Mrs. Davis. Before they left Washington she said, “Lizzie I would rather remain in Washington and be kicked about than go south and be Mrs. President.”
MARY: No!
ELIZABETH: The very words.
MARY: Do you remember how we met?
ELIZABETH: Of course I do, Mrs. Lincoln.
MARY: You’d come to Washington to set up shop as I recall.
ELIZABETH: And could barely pay my bills.
MARY: Let me see if I remember your winding tale. .. You made a lovely dress for Mrs. Lee. . .
ELIZABETH: . . . very quickly.
MARY: Your specialty. She wore it to the dinner for the Prince of Wales, the other ladies of Washington saw it. . .
ELIZABETH: It was my calling card to Washington.
MARY: And splendid card indeed, Lizabeth. Then Mrs. General McClean drove up to your apartments.
ELIZABETH: Sunday. . . she wanted the dress by Sunday. Impossible.
MARY: And you did it.
ELIZABETH: And I did it. . . only with the promise that she’d drop a good word for me at the feet of the White House ladies.
MARY: Lizabeth, you are a politician!
ELIZABETH: I stayed up all night and hired assistants.
MARY: Then that cup of coffee!
ELIZABETH: (laughing) May God bless that cup of coffee!
MARY: I had intended to wear a certain dress to the inauguration ball and I’d spilled coffee on the dress! I asked Mrs. McClean who her seamstress was. . . !
ELIZABETH: God bless that coffee! (they both laugh)
MARY: You knocked on my door.
ELIZABETH: I knocked on your door .. .
MARY: You are Lizzy Keckley, I believe.
ELIZABETH: I was too frightened to speak.
MARY: The dress maker that Mr. McClean recommended?
ELIZABETH: I think I said, “Yes, Ma’am.”
MARY: Very well! I have no time to talk but please call at the White House at eight o’clock tomorrow morning!
ELIZABETH: I could hardly sleep that night, Mrs. Lincoln, then when I arrived I found three dress makers waiting for an interview! Three!
MARY: All my friends had sent their dressmakers.
ELIZABETH: And you chose me.
MARY: I chose you, Lizabeth. My God, what a find! What a friendship! And what did I tell you? It escapes me.
ELIZABETH: You said you would employee me if it wouldn’t cost too much. And that first dress . . .
MARY: Yes. What was it?
ELIZABETH: The bright rose-colored mouri-antique!
MARY: Yes! Yes, of course!
ELIZABETH: I finished it then folded it carefully and hurried to the White House. You were not happy with me.
MARY: I don’t remember that.
ELIZABETH: You said, “Mrs. Keckley, you have disappointed me. . . deceived me! You are late with my dress! I cannot possibly go to the levee tonight!”
MARY: Surely I wasn’t that harsh.
ELIZABETH: You said you wanted my true stories tonight . . .
MARY: Yes, but. . . .
ELIZABETH: You said, “I will stay in my room. Mr. Lincoln can do down alone!”
MARY: Lizabeth! I don’t recall that at all!
ELIZABETH: I do. It was an important night for me. I remember every word, Ma’am. I urged you that you had time, I dressed you, I dressed your hair, then the President came into the room, threw himself onto the sofa and began quoting poetry.
MARY: You remember all that?
ELIZABETH: More than that, Mrs. Lincoln. (a beat, then) I had heard the malicious reports of this couple from the West invading the White House with. . .
MARY: Go ahead. With their vulgar ways.
ELIZABETH: Yes. Awful rumors. But when you descended the stairway of the White House no one could have comported herself with more calmness and dignity. Confidence, Mrs. Lincoln. Grace.
MARY: (a long beat, then almost to herself) You are. . . my rock, Lizzy. My anchor in all this . . . and for so very long.
ELIZABETH: (leaves the space with Mary and walks to the audience as Mary continues to stare at the place Elizabeth has left) Nothing worked. Not a thing. More plans to sell her belongings. . . nothing. Her things were put on display to sell piecemeal . . . very little. The fine ladies would come in to finger the dresses and shawls. It was then that Mr. Brady suggested a one-dollar donation for all who came to see them . . . nothing. An exhibition by admission . . . a failure. Lowered prices, more letters to politicians, letters to the newspapers. . . . nothing, nothing, and nothing. And then one day Mrs. Lincoln packed her trunks to return to Chicago. I accompanied her to the depot and told her goodbye. . . for the last time.
MARY: (coming forward, to the audience) “My Dear Lizzie. . . my ink is like myself and my spirits failing, so I write today with a pencil. It was a solitary ride to Chicago. My car was crowded. No one cared if Mrs. Clarke was inconvenienced. Please go to Mr. Brady every day each morning at nine o’clock and urge him all you can. How much I miss you, tongue cannot tell. I consider you my best living friend and I am struggling to be enabled to some day repay you.”
ELIZABETH: The papers said, “The feeling of public is adverse to the course Mrs. Lincoln has taken and the criticisms are severe.”
MARY: “My Dear Lizzie…I am writing this morning with a broken heart after a sleepless night. Robert came up last night like a maniac and almost threatening his life, looking like death, because of the letters in the newspaper. I weep whilst I am writing. . . I pray for death this morning. Only my darling Teddy prevents me from taking my life.
ELIZABETH: “Some of the clothing, if not worn long, have been worn much. They are ragged under the arms and at the bottom of the skirts, with stains in the lining.”
MARY: “My Dear Lizzie…bowed down with suffering and anguish, I write you. As we might have expected, the Republicans are falsifying me. They will howl on to prevent me from disposing my things. What a vile, vile set they are!”
ELIZABETH: “Notwithstanding they have been worn by Madam Lincoln. The general testimony is that they are high priced and some say the price figures must have been put on by the dressmakers. The peculiarity of the dresses is that the most of them are cut low-necked . . . a taste which some ladies attribute to Mrs. Lincoln’s appreciation of her own bust.”
MARY: “All my articles not sold must be sent to me. Had you better not go with me and share my fortunes for a year or more?”
ELIZABETH: I did not. The labor of a lifetime has brought me nothing in finance. I have worked hard, but fortune, fickle dame, has not smiled upon me. If poverty had not weighed down upon me I would not now be toiling by day with my needle, and writing by night on the fourth floor in a plain little room at number 14 Carroll Place. But though poor in worldly goods, I am rich in friendships. .
MARY: “. . your friend. . . “
ELIZABETH: For sweet friendship’s sake, I can bear more burdens than I have borne.
MARY: . . . “Mary Lincoln.”